The 1929 Northern Ireland general election was held on 22 May 1929. Like all previous elections to the Parliament of Northern Ireland, it produced a large majority for the Ulster Unionist Party.

It was the first election held after the House of Commons (Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern Ireland) 1929, which abolished proportional representation and redrawing of electoral boundaries to create single-seat constituencies (with Queen's University retained as a 4-seat constituency elected by single transferable vote). Though it had been argued this was done with the intent of gerrymandering, this has been considered unlikely as the Unionists already had a solid majority at the parliamentary level. However, the opposite was more accurate at local level. As with the rest of the United Kingdom, this has made it more difficult for independent and minor party candidates like the Northern Ireland Labour Party to win seats, as was the intent of the abolition of proportional representation was for the UUP to control the Unionist vote.

22 MPs (42%), mostly Ulster Unionists, were elected unopposed without any votes being cast. This began a trend which would continue for decades – until 1969, at least 20 MPs in every Northern Ireland general election would be elected unopposed.

Results + ↓ 37 11 3 1 UUP Nationalist IU NILP

Electorate: 775,307 (432,439 in contested seats); Turnout: 67.6% (292,218). Ulster Liberal Party result is compared to Unbought Tenants' Association in 1925.

Votes summary

Seats summary

Contested seats

Only 30 of the 52 seats (58%) were actually contested.

1929 Northern Ireland general election (contested seats) PartyPopular voteCandidates Votes% Stood Elected% Ulster Unionist 148,579 50.8 27 21 70.0 Ind. Unionist 41,778 14.3 10 3 10.0 Nationalist 34,069 11.7 5 5 16.7 Labour 23,334 8.0 5 1 3.3 Liberal 18,208 6.2 5 0 — Local Option 9,776 3.3 3 0 — Town Tenants 6,901 2.4 2 0 — Ind. Nationalist 3,694 1.3 1 0 — Independent 3,437 1.2 1 0 — Ind. Labour 2,442 0.8 2 0 — Total 292,218 67.6% 61 30 —

Uncontested seats

In 22 of the 52 seats (42%), only one candidate stood and they were elected unopposed without any votes cast. The vast majority of the MPs elected without a contest were Ulster Unionists.

1929 Northern Ireland general election (uncontested seats) PartyPopular voteCandidates Votes% Stood Elected% Ulster Unionist Unopposed 16 16 72.7 Nationalist Unopposed 6 6 27.3 Total 22 22 100

Footnotes

References

Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results